


Late Night Pickups, Political Fuckups, and Everything In Between

by tanzertime



Category: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Hook-Up, Trans Character, WELL... thinking the other is fucking ANNOYING to friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2020-07-30 19:30:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20102437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanzertime/pseuds/tanzertime
Summary: One night, Zaphod Beeblebrox makes the mistake of picking up a girl from Earth. Now, he can't seem to get rid of her, as much as they both seem to wish the other was dead. Wonder why that is...





	1. First Contact

Zaphod had to admit, of all the life threatening situations he’d been in this week, this was the one, by  _ far,  _ that turned him on the most. Seeing as most of those situations had either involved near arrests or space detritus, that was probably a good thing.

The life-threatening situation in question was the woman on top of his fridge with a broken bottle in her hand and everything that could even be remotely considered a gun stockpiled behind her. 

“Back up! Back the FUCK up,” she yelled, swinging the bottle with all the rage of a cornered animal. Zaphod leaned back and did as he was told, raising all three of his hands. 

“Woah, alright, baby, let me explain --”

“What did you put in my drink?”

“I didn’t put anything in your drink --”

“Oh, right, yeah!” she snarled. “So you’ve just got three arms and two heads? And I’m on a spaceship? And that’s just reality, then?”

Zaphod stuttered for a moment. “...Well, yes.”

“Fuck off!” she snapped, grabbing one of the smaller shards of the bottle and hurling it at him. 

Zaphod barely ducked out of the way. “Jesus Christ, you seemed so normal on Earth --”

“Back UP!”

“I haven’t stepped up!”

“I’ll use one of these fucking guns!”

“You don’t know how to use those guns, you carbon-based --” 

Zaphod’s throats closed in fear as he watched her power on the zapper.

“How --”

“What the fuck did you think I was doing before you woke up?”

“Listen.  _ Listen,”  _ Zaphod said, dropping his voice to the most soothing tone he could manage, “Just power the gun off. I’ll explain everything.”

“Sure, yeah,” she growled. “I’m going to believe the man with twenty-something guns and enough booze to drown an island.”

“Oh, alright, you think you know what you’re doing?” He snapped. “You’re on some hallucinogen, then. That’s what you’re claiming. So how do you know that’s a gun, and not a pepper shaker?”

Concern crossed her face for a moment, but he didn’t have long to savor it as she grit her teeth and trained it on his chest. “I know one way.”

Zaphod made a  _ very  _ undignified noise as he leapt out of the way of the ray. He heard it hit and smelled burning leather. His left head whirled around to reveal that his couch was now missing most of its back. He turned back towards her, now an equal mix of terrified and furious. “You’re replacing that!”

The woman was slowly picking her way down from the fridge, ray still trained on Zaphod. “Tell me what you put in my drink.”

“Why did you even bother with the bottle?”

“Tell me what you put in my drink,” she repeated, deadly calm, ray still aimed at his chest as she stepped onto the counter. 

“I didn’t --”

“TELL ME,” she snarled, stepping down from the counter and towards the heap of a man staring up at her, “what you put in my drink!”

Zaphod shrank back. “What do you want me to say? How am I supposed to prove this to you?”

She reached up and turned up the power on the ray gun. “Take me home. Now.”

“That… that I can do, okay? Just get the gun out of my faces,” he managed to snap, as threatening as a man sprawled on the floor in his underwear could be. 

The woman took a step back. “What’s your name?”

“What?”

“Your  _ name,”  _ she repeated without even the slightest trace of patience. 

“Zaphod Beeblebrox, current candidate for president of the galaxy.”

She looked at him for a moment, an even mix between furious and dumbfounded. She rubbed over her eyes and sighed. “Give me your wallet.”

“What?”

“Give me your wallet. You’re going to drive me home, and you’re going to sit in my flat while I call the police, and I’m going to give them your wallet because I don’t trust a word out of your stupid mouth.”

“I’m not going to give you my --”

The still-warm tip of the ray gun pressed against one of his foreheads. It was his handsomer one, too. 

He handed over his wallet. 

The woman moved to the counter and flipped it open, gun still trained on Zaphod, and dug through. She came to his galactic ID and grumbled. “Un-fucking-believable.”

“S’on my local ID too, if you don’t believe the first one.”

She glared at him and kept searching. She threw aside his Betelgeuse ID, his intergalactic credit card, several business cards, notes from scorned lovers, growing increasingly frustrated with each one. When the wallet was empty except for a few bills and a gift card for a place called Dairy Queen that he had won at the raffle last night, she furiously stuffed the cards into her pocket. “Drive me home,” she growled, increasing the power on the ray once again. 

“My pleasure,” he shot back, unable to help himself. “Can I stand up, or will you blast me into dust?”

She pursed her lips in frustration and stepped back, lowering the gun just a bit. “Just get up… ‘Zaphod,’ if you’re going to insist on using that ridiculous name.”

“It’s a family name,” he huffed, getting to his feet. “I’m actually the fifth in my line, you know that?”

“I’m sure you are.”

“It’s Zaphod Beeblebrox the first. There was a mixup, but I still think my point stands. And no matter my lineage, I  _ am _ the current frontrunner for president of the galaxy.  _ That’s _ the man you’re holding at gunpoint right now.”

“Oh, I’m  _ very  _ impressed,” she said with a roll of the eyes, following him closely as he started towards the control panel at the head of the ship. 

“You were last night,” he said before he could stop himself. 

She buried the point of the gun into his back. 

He swallowed hard and decided to find a way to stop himself next time.

The directions to Earth had only taken a few seconds to plug in. Now he was stuck on his feet at the control panel, because the woman… what was her name, something with a T? Had taken up residency in his big fancy chair.

“Are you almost there?” She asked, glancing at space as it zipped by. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled, pointing to one of a thousand rocks going by. “See, out there, that’s Amalthea, so we’re only a few planets —“

“Amalthea,” the woman muttered, confusion crossing her brow. “How did you know that?”

Zaphod arched an eyebrow. “Because it’s one of, what, eighty something? You don’t get to be the front runner of the galactic presidential campaign without knowing a little basic --”

“Shut up. How did you know that’s what I was seeing?” She said, the threat in her tone a little muted by confusion. 

“Because I’m also seeing it,” he sighed. This had to be getting old for her, too. Or not. Primitive, primitive minds. 

“...Stop the space -- the car,” she said, nudging him with the ray gun.

Zaphod winced and pulled the brake. They stopped outside of a little red planet. 

“What are we looking at,” Trillian asked, eyes locked on the big ball of rock. 

“Mars,” Zaphod answered, frankly a little more bored than upset. 

She pursed her lips and looked frustrated. After a moment, she reached out and grabbed a big handful of his face. 

“Ow, ow, hands OFF, alright, I --”

“Okay, spaceman,” she hissed, “if you’re an alien, how do you speak English, hm?”

“Got a esperanfish,” he growled, trying to push her hand off. “It’s like a babelfish, but you swallow it.”

“Babelfish?”

“It’s -- you all really are primitive, wow,” he tossed in, just for good measure. “A babelfish. Sits in your ear, eats your brainwaves, spits out things in your native language. I’ll have you know that the esperanfish is actually a very new,  _ very  _ expensive breed of babelfish, and I’d appreciate if you would --”

She pried her thumb into his mouth and forced it open. 

“Wha are yuh --”

She squinted, then pulled him into the light. She seemed to get nauseous for a moment, then stepped back, fear slowly ebbing away her rage. “This is a dream, then.”

“Really? Feels more to me like a zarking nightmare,” he grumbled, rubbing his jaw.

The woman pinched herself a few times and looked even more upset when nothing happened. She threw her head back and groaned. “None of this makes sense. Absolutely none of this --”

“Actually, I’ve been very patiently explaining,” Zaphod explained, “you just haven’t listened to me.”

The woman rubbed her temples. “This can’t be happening.”

“I  _ really  _ wish that was true.”

“I knew it, I knew it, I  _ knew  _ extraterrestrial life was out there,” she muttered, pacing. “I just never expected that they’d look like rejects from Jesus Christ Superstar.”

“Well, from what I know, he’s very popular with your species, so I’m taking that as a compliment.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Well… I am.”

She groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Can’t believe this. Can’t fucking believe this…”

“Well, you’d better start believing it…” he stumbled, trying to remember her name. “Tri...Trillian.”

“Wh -- It’s  _ Tricia,  _ you half-wit.”

“Tricia? What kind of name is Tricia?”

“What kind of name is Zaphod?”

“An impressive one!”

“Shut UP, okay?” Tricia pushed her hair out of her face and groaned. “Just shut up. You’re annoying.”

“See, this is why we’re not supposed to fool around with primitive species,” Zaphod muttered, popping his feet up on the dashboard. “A reptilian caught some Icke fellow once and now he’s caused a real stir down there. Course, he got most of it wrong. The reptilians are actually very peaceful. Known for their pastries.”

“I didn’t ask,” Tricia muttered, moving to the dashboard. Her eyes were locked on the stars. Zaphod could basically hear the gears in her head turning. And, now that she wasn’t holding him at gunpoint, he could settle back and remind himself as to why he’d picked her up. 

Tricia reached forward and brushed a hand over one of the many buttons. “So, we really are looking at Mars, then…”

“Yeah. Not very impressive, if you ask me,” Zaphod chimed in. “Kind of a scrawny civilization. They never even figured out the whole thing with the rocks. Banging them together and whatnot. I actually went to school with the person who taught them the secret of fire. Here, actually, let me just —“ he pressed a few buttons and a screen popped out on the passenger's side. “Take a look.”

Tricia pulled herself away from the sight of mars and focused on the screen. With a few more button presses, he zoomed in on a pile of rocks. 

“Right there,” he said, pretending to be nonchalant. “It says ‘Iyanup was here.’ They used it as a holy site. Wonder what he’s up to now.”

She squinted at the rocks. “I don’t see any marks.”

“Ah, your feeble ape-mind doesn’t understand the script, is all,” Zaphod said, bluffing entirely. He knew it was Mars because his monitor told him so. As he squinted closer at the readout, even, he saw that no civilization had ever been there, and he knew from personal experience that Iyanup had been sucked into a black hole during their senior prank and would have never had a chance to come to this part of the galaxy, let alone teach its non-extant patrons how to use fire. “I understand. This must be a lot. Like running a supercomputer on one of those silly watches your species likes so much.”

Tricia was not listening to him, which he didn’t like, but it was a step up from threatening his life. Cautiously, she reached out and pressed a button. The monitor unfocused from Mars, and she twitched her lip and very carefully reached for the trackpad.

“What are you doing?”

“Figuring this ship out,” She said, very plainly. 

“You can’t read the buttons, but you’re going to fly the ship?”

“...Yes,” she decided, moving the focus of the camera with the trackpad. “Eventually, yes.”

Zaphod sighed and reached under the dashboard. “Well, if you want this to go a little faster, might as well just --” he pulled a spare babelfish from one of the cupboards and set it on the dash. “Here. Stick that in your ear.”

She looked at him, her face now half lost and half overwhelmed, then looked down at the babelfish. “...The fish?”

“Yeah, put it in your ear.”

“...In my ear?”

“So you can read the buttons,” he explained with a sigh. So simple. Too bad she still had a gun, or he’d have shoved her in the airlock and sent her out already, this was simply weighing his patience. “It’s a babelfish, I  _ just  _ explained this.”

Tricia leaned closer, focusing, still in her strange haze. “He’s humming.”

“Great.”

“How do I know this isn’t --”

Tricia reeled back and shrieked as the fish jumped up into her ear. It took only a moment, but in her panic she knocked the bowl to the ground, where it shattered and splashed musty water onto Zaphod’s very nice pilot chair.

“You idiot, my chair!”

Tricia stumbled back a step and reached up, very gently, to touch her ear. She pulled her hand away and watched as it brought with it a line of slime. 

She looked at the slime. 

She looked out at Mars. 

She looked at Zaphod.

“Are you done?” Zaphod asked. 

Tricia, promptly, passed out in the pilot’s chair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tbey said it couldnt be done. They said, eli, you gay bitch, you;ll never write f/m fic. and here i am. so far up these two's ass. id die for them, and i will. gnight every body more to come soon bc most of its written and im just figuring out the end (yes i dont know how many chapters there'll be yes i should have waited to post this and YES my meat is huge)


	2. Hard Bargain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Look,” she snapped, setting the cup aside. “I’ve made up my mind: this is either real, or a dream.”
> 
> “Sounds very productive.”

Well, he hadn’t killed her, which was morally a step up for him. 

Zaphod had his heels up on the monitor of his ship, regarding the woman unconscious on his couch. He’d disarmed her, finally, which he felt was a step in the right direction. And he’d went ahead and put real clothes on. A nice shirt and some pants. He grumbled and leaned down to pick up another shard of glass he’d missed earlier. Not like he had a broom. What respectable man had a broom? Not like he went around smashing things. He tossed the shard in the garbage and went back to glaring at Tricia. 

He’d gone ahead and parked on Mars. No need to attract  _ more  _ unwanted attention from this species. Not like they spent a lot of time looking at Mars in the daytime anyways. He hoped. She’d mentioned something about space yesterday, he hadn’t been listening very closely. Ah well. He could hedge his bets here. 

Bored now, he nursed a cup of Andromedan coffee. He’d nipped over there because he hadn’t much felt like cleaning his mugs, with the morning he’d had. Another paper cup was sitting in the cupholder, untouched, and he had dragged a chair over for her to sit in when she woke up. They had a lot to discuss. 

First off, she was going to need to keep quiet about this whole forray if he wanted his campaign to go anywhere. He was running against a reptilian, and about the only leg up he had was that she was a member of the species who’d almost tipped Earth off to the universe at large. He took a sip of his coffee. Ah, taking advantage of racism. Oldest trick in the book. 

Secondly, he had to get her home safe, and he had no idea how he was going to pull that one off. He had landed on the piece of land he saw first and went to the loudest house he could find, meaning he didn’t have the slightest idea where she lived. He supposed he could drop her wherever he pleased, but that would probably not engender her to  _ not  _ causing a stir. 

There was, of course, always the option of shooting her into the vacuum of space. 

He frowned, pointedly, and asked himself: why hadn’t he done that?

Okay, sure, he wasn’t the killing type. Maybe he didn’t go out of his way to stop it sometimes, but he didn’t want to do it personally. But if any situation called for it, it was probably this. 

His frown deepened, and he asked himself another question: why had he given her a babelfish?

Zaphod Beeblebrox did not spend a lot of time mulling over decisions. He followed instinct, because it had steered him well so far, and instinct had told him to give her a babelfish.

Which she wouldn’t need, if she was just talking to him then going home forever. In fact, it would likely make things  _ more  _ inconvenient, because now she had proof. 

He groaned and took another swig of his coffee. He was suddenly caught -- either he would have to admit his instincts were wrong, or that his thinking afterwards was wrong. Either way, he would be admitting he was wrong. And that was something he hated to do. 

His left head turned as the figure on the couch shifted. Tricia rubbed her eyes, groaning. 

“God, what a nightmare,” she mumbled. 

Zaphod was feeling tired and didn’t have a zippy line, so he instead pointedly slurped his coffee so she’d notice him. 

She did, then buried her face in her hands.  _ “Fuck.” _

“Maybe later.”

She groaned and reached for her gun, eyes widening as she realized it was no longer there. “You weasley little --”

“I don’t have it either,” he said, raising all three of his hands and lying, as it was hidden in the holster in the back of the chair. “So, maybe we can just discuss this like adults?”

Tricia pursed her lips, furious. “Take me home.”

“After this,” he assured her, indicating the chair. “And you’ll never see me again.”

He explained everything very patiently, which in and of itself was a feat. Avoiding rolling his eyes when she made him explain that being president was pointless for the upteenth time, and again when she demanded to know why he cared to be it if that was the case, was a test of will. 

“So, it’s a meaningless title?”

“Yes.”

“Leads to people hating you, wanting you taken out whenever things go poorly for them?”

“Right again.”

“...And you  _ want  _ to be it?”

“Again, Tricia, you have the concepts down,” he said with a sigh. “I just don’t see why you’re struggling with this.”

She shook her head, taking another sip of her coffee. “So I have to ask, for the millionth time,  _ why?” _

Zaphod, for the millionth time, shrugged. 

She leaned back in her chair and groaned. “Incredible.”

“I am, aren’t I?”

“Stop it.”

“No.”

“ _ Look,” _ she snapped, setting the cup aside. “I’ve made up my mind: this is either real, or a dream.”

“Sounds  _ very  _ productive.”

“Shut up. My point is, if it’s a dream, no harm can come of this, and eventually I’ll wake up in my bed and forget this whole thing happened by lunch. But if it’s  _ real,”  _ she said, leaning in, “I can see how this will work out very nicely for the both of us.”

Zaphod’s brows furrowed. “No, because it’s going to work out nicely for me.”

“Listen,” she said, taking on a tone like they were plotting some great heist. “I’m an astrophysicist with a PhD in mathematics. You’re on the campaign trail. So you’re zipping around the universe now, right? Meeting lots of people, shaking hands, going to lots of new places?”

Zaphod nodded. She was right so far, he lived a very cool and fun life.

She grabbed him by his main shoulders. “Take me there.”

Zaphod looked at her for a moment. 

Then he laughed very, very hard.

“Oh, oh sweet  _ zarquon,”  _ he gasped, barely able to breathe between fits of laughter. “I actually -- it’s funny, I thought you were going to say something -- I thought you were going to actually say something --” he broke down again, holding his stomach.

She shoved him backwards and snapped to her feet. “Okay, spaceman, then how about I tell everyone on Earth about your whole schtick?”

“And why,” he chuckled, winding down from laughter, “would they believe you?”

She pointed to her right ear. 

Zaphod pretended that he didn’t feel his throat tighten with anxiety. “Yeah, right, fine. Tell them, then.”

“When a young, top-of-her-class astrophysicist shows up one day, can understand every single language immediately upon hearing it, and show them a fish in her ear still flopping around and doing fine,” she snarled, voice deadly low, “people are going to listen. And when people listen, the thing I will have them do before anything else is get every radio tower on Earth to point their signals to space, and scream in one furious voice, that Zaphod Beeblebrox has a dick the size of a lima bean.”

Zaphod got very quiet. 

“Would you like that to happen?” She asked, evenly. 

Zaphod glanced away from her glare. “No,” he answered, very honestly.

“Good.” She sat back down and took up her coffee again. “Then I’ll be coming with you on weekends. 

He grumbled. “It’s much bigger than a lima bean.”

“You have a way to prove that?”

“I mean… yes, but --”

This time, she cut him off. “Not a very presidential way, I’d say.”

Zaphod slumped back in his chair and went to take another sip of his coffee. It was empty. He threw it aside. Another very annoying thing that had happened today.

“Do we have a deal, spaceman?”

He curled his lip in distaste. No, they didn’t. He didn’t want to do that, and also, he had a gun he could use to shoot her.

But instinct gnawed in the back of his mind. 

She held out her hand, and he shook it.

“Deal,” he sighed.


	3. Hitting the Trail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “For a self-proclaimed ‘scientist,’ you really don’t have much in the way of lab equipment.”
> 
> “What, so I just tell the lab I’m nipping over to Andromeda and need to borrow some things?”
> 
> Zaphod tried to think of a witty response and failed. “Let’s just get back on the ship, yeah?”

“Doctor Tricia McMillan, log one, day one,” the human chirped into a chunky voice recorder that made Zaphod roll his eyes. “Andromeda system. My assistant has informed me that there is not only  _ a  _ planet capable of supporting human life, but  _ several _ , many with thriving ecosystems and intelligent populations.” Giddily, she swiveled the chair back and forth with one foot, the other hugged to her chest. “My assistant has also provided very interesting evidence about the social habits and physiological makeup of this population, known as…?” she swiveled towards where he was adjusting his hair in a small mirror on the dash.

“Andromidians, obviously,” he huffed, bobby-pinning a long strand back. “Stop calling me your assistant. I know more than you ever will.”

“Andromidians, thank you, assistant researcher Beetleboy.”

He glared. She grinned. He hated that she was still alive.

“-- That seem to place them as a close cousin to homo sapiens,” she continued. “This, paired with information I have gathered from my assistant personally, leads me to the theory that bipedal humanoids are, in fact, the species most adept to form intelligent civilizations, and that we humans simply got very lucky when the apes decided to stand up one day.”

Zaphod chuckled. 

Then he blinked. 

He chuckled?

No, she wasn’t funny. She was a pain in the ass. 

He straightened his ties and gave himself one more once-over. “Alright, we’re going,” he grumbled as he tapped the coordinates in and started the ship.

“Great,” she chirped, shutting the recorder off and switching to her notebook. “Should save some tape for the planet, anyways --”

“Oh, no, no no no,” Zaphod said, reaching for the recorder with his third arm while the other two steered. “Absolutely not.”

“What?” she asked, incredulous, snatching the recorder back from him. “How am I supposed to have proof of --”

“ _ Exactly, _ ” Zaphod snapped back. “You think a little monkey planet suddenly knowing the secrets of the universe is a good idea?”

“Oh, but you’ll let me record on the ship?”

“Yeah, because it can be passed off as a madwoman’s ramblings, or a stupid pilot for a radio show. I’m speaking English. The Andromidian language can’t be produced by anything on Earth, I can’t let you have that on tape.”

“Are you serious?”

“Go ahead and take notes,” he said with a wave of his hand. “But you’re already holding that stupid fish over my head, I’m not giving you any more evidence.”

“Oh, and you think you’re going to stop me?” she said, holding the recorder out of his reach. 

“Yeah. Yeah, actually, I do.” His third arm grabbed the arm of her chair and pulled it closer while his second arm grabbed the recorder.   
“Hey!”

“You can play with it all you want until we get there,” he teased, taking on the tone of someone scolding a toddler. “But you have to put your toys away at daddy’s big event, okay?”

“ _ Never  _ call yourself that again.”

“I won’t if you will.”

“You’re disgusting,” she grumbled, punching his shoulder. He pretended it didn’t hurt and tossed her back the recorder, turning both heads back towards the windshield. 

He heard the click of the recorder start up again. “Doctor Tricia McMillan, log two, day one. Men are the same on every planet, and it’s a miracle any species made it out of the primordial ooze.”

Zaphod was (very efficiently) shaking hands with a small group of Andromidian reporters following his speech when he realized Tricia was no longer at his side. For a second, he was fine with that. Then he felt his heart jump into one of his throats.

Across the way, Zalixoarian Pheebos, a reptilian who was running against him, was having a very earnest conversation with a figure in a red headscarf.

Zaphod swallowed hard and turned back to the reporters. 

“So lovely to meet all of you, you’re all positively froody, really, but I’m afraid I have to go.”

“Actually, sir,” one of the shorter Andromidians (a feat in and of itself — their tallest would come to about his knees) chirped as he shouldered his camera, “I was meaning to ask, Mr. Beeblebrox, your assistant —“

“Lovely girl! Have I mentioned that? I employ women, ladies,” Zaphod said, winking at the camera as he started to inch away from them. “It’s a man’s galaxy, baby, isn’t that a shame? But I’ll turn it around, yeah? Again, so great to catch up, have to go.”

“No, no, Mr. Beeblebrox, I was meaning to ask where she’s —“

“Oh, I don’t see race, you know. Or species, or planetary loyalties.” He continued backing away, one set of eyes locked on Tricia consorting with the enemy. “We’re all just in one big spaceship, and if there’s one thing I can do, it’s pilot a spaceship. Am I right? Haha, so great to meet you all. Have to be going!”

With that, he turned and swaggered towards Tricia, trying with every bone in his body to appear unbothered while pretending he couldn’t hear their confused muttering as he made his way over. 

“Ah, Ms. Pheebos!”

“Beeblebrox,” the reptilian sighed, clearly annoyed.

“Wonderful speech today, if I may say.”

“Yours too,” she grumbled. “Especially the part where you brought up how one of my species accidentally tipped the Earth off to the larger universe. Can’t leave well enough alone, can you?”

“Well, I ran the numbers, baby. I’m not winning your home planet, so I figured I may as well win everyone who’s a little angry with you, yeah?” He said with two big, shit-eating grins. “Seems like the right move, is all.”

“Right, yeah. The right, deeply racist, move.”

Zaphod shrugged. “I didn’t make the system, baby, I just profit from it.”

Pheebos’ lips slowly curled into the closest approximation of a smile a lizardwoman could form. “Of course. You know, I’ve been talking with your assistant here, ah — what was your name, dear?” She asked, turning to Tricia. 

“Trillian,” Zaphod supplied, earning himself a glare. “Her name’s Trillian.”

“Mm-hm,” Pheebos hummed. “Where are you from, Trillian?”

“Betelgeuse five,” Zaphod supplied again, the venier of coolness slowly beginning to slip. 

“I asked her,” the lizardwoman hissed.

Both of them turned to look at Tricia, who had been hurriedly jotting down notes through the entire conversation.

“...I said, I asked  _ her, _ ” Pheebos repeated, redoing her dramatic turn. 

Tricia continued her furious note taking. After a moment, she clicked the pen shut and kneeled down, grabbing a handful of turf and stuffing it into a plastic bag. She taped it shut and stuffed it into her bag, making sure it wasn’t crushed by anything. After that, she looked up at the two aliens. “Sorry, once again?”

“She asked if your name is Trillian and if you’re from Betelgeuse five.”

She glanced between the two. Zaphod thought at her, with all his might,  _ agree with me or we’re both doomed. _

“...Sure, yeah,” she said with a shrug before glancing back through her notes. “Zaphod, can we get some samples of the water on this planet?”

“Sure can,” he said, offering Pheebos a smile. A big, mean one. The smile of a man who’d just won. She glared back at him. 

“I know what she is,” she hissed.

“Prove it, then,” he hissed back. 

“Sorry, can we go?” Tricia didn’t hiss. 

“Sure thing, baby,” Zaphod smarmed, putting a hand on her shoulder. “See you on the trail, Pheebos!”

“See you in hell, Beeblebrox!” She snarled, performing the reptilian version of ‘flipping him off’ over her shoulder as she stomped back towards her ship.

_ “Baby,” _ Zaphod hissed under his breath as he lead her towards a nearby lake, “we have  _ got  _ to work on your cover story.”

“Hmm,” Tricia replied, not looking up from her notepad.

“ _ Tricia,”  _ he said with a little more bite, squeezing her shoulder in a way that wouldn’t read on cameras as threatening. “Put. The notepad. Down.”

Tricia sighed with a deal of theater and flipped the pad shut. “What?”

“Listen, I love your whole ‘unbothered woman’ act as much as the next guy, but if any of these clowns find out you’re human, A, my whole circus is shut down, and B, you’re either getting shot on sight or put in a zoo.  _ So,” _ he said as they reached the lake, “either work with me, or get dropped on the next planet the guide’s rated as ‘fine, save for all the ravenous beasts bent on rending flesh from bone.’ Deal?”

Tricia curled her lip and glared at him. Zaphod stared back in a way that he hoped communicated that he was, in no way, kidding. She picked up on the hint and sighed, reaching into her bag and grabbing a tupperware bin that she filled with the murky waters of the lake before sealing it diligently and tucking it in with the rest of her things. “For a self-proclaimed ‘playboy-type’, you’re really no fun.”

“For a self-proclaimed ‘scientist,’ you really don’t have much in the way of lab equipment.”

“What, so I just tell the lab I’m nipping over to Andromeda and need to borrow some things?”

Zaphod tried to think of a witty response and failed. “Let’s just get back on the ship, yeah?”

“Mad because you couldn’t think of anything clever to say?”

“ _ No,  _ I --” He shot her a glare. Zaphod had heard the term ‘if looks could kill’ before and now thought of it as more of a wish and less as a turn of phrase. “Just shut up.”

Tricia smiled, content with herself, and started towards the ship. Zaphod, furious, followed.

“So. Your name is Trillian, you’re a native of Betelgeuse Five. Sound good?”

“Do I not get a last name?” the newly-dubbed Trillian asked, absently spinning in her chair. 

“Don’t think you’ll need one. They’re more of a title than anything back home,” Zaphod replied, most of his attention focused on the stretch of space between them and Earth. 

“How about… Astra,” she said, motioning like her name would be strung up in lights. “Nice and spacey.”

“I… fine, sure, whatever.” He was really not in a froody mood, and by no means searching for an argument at the moment. 

“Trillian Astra,” she repeated, spinning herself around in the chair. “I like it.” She stopped herself suddenly, leaning in and studying the controls with interest. “So, Beetleboy, got anything I can read up on so I know the ropes of this planet I’m supposedly from?”

Zaphod dug into his bag with his free arm and fished out a copy of the guide. “There. That’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

She ran a thumb over the cover. “‘Don’t panic.’ Good advice.”

Zaphod bit back a tiny smile. “For once, I can’t disagree.”

Trillian flipped through the guide, fairly quickly getting ahold of the controls. “Betelgeuse Five, then. ‘Finest broads on…’ She blinked, then scrunched her nose, repulsed. “‘Finest broads on a planet with a red sun?’”

“Yeah, actually, my semi-cousin wrote that,” Zaphod said approvingly, indicating where the initials I.P. were included in the nearly microscopic footnotes. “Classic Ix, always had an eye for the big picture. Haven’t heard from him in a while, actually.”

Trillian crinkled her nose and powered through the rest of the article the same way one powers through a meal of roadkill when one is starving to the point of ‘old skunk’ being their best option. “Disgusting. They must not have a single woman on staff.”

“I can get you signed up,” Zaphod offered, not completely bluffing.

Trillian sighed, scrolling through the article and jotting the occasional note in her book. “I’ll have to pass.”

“Suit yourself,” he shrugged as they pulled up within teleporting range. 

As he darted away from the little blue planet, Zaphod couldn’t help but glance at it in his rearview. 

Well, she was resilient, that was for sure. A good quality to have when traversing the universe.

His eyes focused on himself in the mirror, and he sighed, turning back to the long stretch of space ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All for now. Again, shit is written and edited, but I want the ending figured out before I put the next chunk up! yeehaw, baby


	4. Zaphod Achieves the Impossible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We’ve never seen this many vegetables, buddy," the voice supplied, matter-of-factly. "And we’ve campaigned on planets where they make up the population."

Zaphod stumbled into his ‘kitchen,’ shoving his thick blanket of hair out of his eyes as he blindly fumbled for a coffee mug. Finding the handle of the cupboard, he pulled it open and reached for one of his larger mugs only to find his hand filled with a soft bag of… something.

Rubbing his wrist over his crusty eyes once again, he squinted at the ‘something’ in his hand. It was a small bag, filled with a very soft red substance. Cursing, he threw it back into the cupboard, where it joined a small army of other neatly-labeled bags of dirt. Oh, he was  _ regretting  _ his embargo on space things leaving the ship. Still grumbling, he reached for one of the (many) dirty mugs sitting in the sink. It’d have to do, because apparently he lived with thirty-something bags of dirt now, which -- 

Zaphod blinked. Thirty-something?

He looked at the bags, seeing the latest was dated for last Saturday and labeled with a neat little 20. Imagine that. Had to be a couple of Earth-months deep by now, right? Boy, she sure hadn’t died yet. He had some pretty mixed feelings on the topic. 

Setting the coffee on to brew, he dug through the fridge for breakfast and found water samples, water samples, and… one mostly empty bottle of Janx. His stomach growled at him for this inconvenience. He cursed Trillian for filling his fridge with stuff that A, would not intoxicate him, and B, he wasn’t allowed to touch even if it would. A tiny voice nagged him, reminding him that she hadn’t made him neglect grocery shopping for a solid month. As he usually did with little voices in his head, he tossed back the rest of the Janx and kept digging. 

Eventually settling for some soggy, flavorless leftovers that he could no longer identify the original form of, he made a mental note to swing by a store later. Leaning up against the counter, he poured himself a mug of coffee and took a sip. He’d gotten used to black coffee over the last few months, due to the fact that he rarely went out and bought the means of changing black coffee into, oh, you know, something remotely enjoyable. He crinkled his nose as his lip hit something tacky on the side, and he pulled the mug away to find that old coffee was practically giving the cup a second layer of glaze. Zaphod set the mug aside, pushing aside a mound of dirty dishes in the process. He looked around his ship -- yes, it just about followed form from his kitchen outwards. A tiny voice spoke up in the back of his head. 

_ You ought to clean up around here.  _

He went to take a sip of coffee and was reminded of why he’d put it down in the first place. “Yeah, but who am I trying to impress?” he said, out loud, to his empty spaceship.

_ Tricia,  _ the voice responded simply.  _ You’re trying very hard to impress Tricia.  _

“What?” Zaphod laughed, grabbing a damp towel and scrubbing the layer of grime off the mug. “Don’t be ridiculous. And it’s Trillian.”

_ I’m not being ridiculous, and you like Tricia better, because it’s charmingly simple, which works in such great contrast to who she is. _

Zaphod faked a laugh and took a sip of his coffee, now (mostly) de-grimed. “Yeah, sure thing. Got any proof of that?”

_ Well, A, I’m your internal monologue and therefore voice your thoughts as they come,  _ the voice replied, more patient than a man like Zaphod deserved.  _ And B, you haven’t killed her, C, you haven’t marooned her, D, you haven’t even thrown out her samples -- _

“Sure, sure, yeah, but that doesn’t mean --”

_ E, you haven’t had sex with anyone since that night, and F, you’re doing the dishes right now because I said it would impress her. _

Zaphod looked at where he was wrist-deep in warm, sudsy water. He looked at the sponge in his upper right hand and one of his plates in the left. He looked at himself in the reflection of the bubbles, diligently scrubbing away like a housemaid. Then, squinting in distrust, Zaphod Beeblebrox drew himself up and crossed his arms. 

“Alright. Alright, then, voice-in-my-head. I’ve caught a little bug, yeah. S’not my zarking fault, she’s an ace in bed, and pretty resilient to the abuses the universe throws at her. Remember how she didn’t even flinch when we were marooned on that desert planet for eight hours, weathering a sandstorm, a tornado, and earthquake all at once?”

_ Yes, because I’m you.  _

“Shut up,” Zaphod replied, again, to his empty spaceship. “All I’m saying is, a lot of girls I pick up along the way, they balk at the very  _ idea _ of trudging through the swamplands outside of Sirius just so I can get the frog-man vote. I mean, really, she was zarking  _ excited  _ to get in there and scoop up samples for her weird little experiments. So yeah, maybe I took a little interest in her. I guarantee, as soon as she’s off of this spaceship, I’ll be right back to classic Beeblebrox, best bang since the big one, nothing to even worry about.”

_ You’re doing the dishes again.  _

Zaphod glanced down to find that he was, in fact, doing the dishes. “... Zark,” he growled, glaring at the row of clean plates waiting to be dried. “Just shut up and let me do my cleaning.”

The voice, in fact, did shut up. Zaphod was grateful for the limited control he had of his mental capacities in these trying times. 

He cleaned the dishes, telling himself that that was all he needed to do. Then he went to sit down on the couch and found it covered in dirty clothes and old fast-food wrappers. That was annoying (for him and him alone, he told himself), so he went about picking up the little living room. And, well, now he had all of the laundry in one place, and he was in spitting distance of a planet with a laundromat. It even had a dry-cleaners, if he remembered correctly. That, and the same planet had a grocery store just a bit down the road, so he might as well stop in there while he waited for his clothes to finish up. And as he finished with that, he was tired, so he figured he may as well take a nap, but found that his room was dirty as well. Well, that was pretty easily fixed. And, you know what, while he was planet-side, he might as well drop off some of the garbage he’d let pile up. And as he did that, he realized that the ship had a certain stink to it that air freshener just wasn’t hiding anymore, so he opened all the windows and made himself a bucket of mopwater for the mop he’d just picked up from the same grocery, but first he swept up with the broom he’d also just obtained, then --

Zaphod Beeblebrox blinked at his shockingly clean spaceship. 

Now, he’d been knocked on his ass by a few things he’d tried before. Fungus from the star system Floh Rid A, Tablets from the LDS system, and just plain old stardust, he’d tried it all. He’d woken up in several strange places, in several strange states of undress, with several strange people he had never met before in his life. But this one beat it all. 

He checked the bottle of Janx he’d taken a slug from before. There’d been a little less then a shot in there, and he hadn’t tasted anything funny about it.

He stumbled back and fell into his couch. That means… that had to mean, then, that… it couldn’t be, but… 

He had done all of this  _ dead sober.  _

Zaphod went to pull his fingers through his hair in despair, but was stopped by the old headband he’d put there to keep it all out of his eyes while he… and he shuddered to think this, but … while he  _ worked.  _ Biting back a chill, Zaphod buried his faces in his hands and groaned. How could this happen? The great Zaphod Beeblebrox, the froodiest guy in the universe, was doing his  _ chores.  _

_ It’s because you want to impress Tricia,  _ that voice said. 

“Shut UP,” Zaphod barked, once again, at nobody. “It’s not, just… one thing lead to the other, I don’t know, just --”

_ Go check your fridge.  _

“What?”

_ Go check it,  _ the voice repeated, still obnoxiously even-keeled. 

Zaphod, grumbling, rose to his feet and walked to his fridge. “I don’t see what this has to do with --” he looked inside and blinked. “Sweet zarquon.”

_ We’ve never seen this many vegetables, buddy,  _ the voice supplied, matter-of-factly.  _ And we’ve campaigned on planets where they make up the population.  _

Zaphod, as if he feared they would hop out and bite him, slammed the door shut. “Proves nothing. I’m keeping trim for the female population of the universe. It is my duty, after all.”

_ And that, on the counter? _

Zaphod turned to the counter and looked at the bag sitting there. “What, those chips?”

_ You picked that same type of chip up on a whim last month,  _ the voice informed him.  _ Found you hated them. When Tricia got on board --  _

“Trillian,” he grumpily corrected. 

_ Whichever. When she got on board, she asked to try them, and told you she loved them.  _ The voice paused, letting him take in the chips that looked back at him dauntingly.  _ So, buddy, who did we buy those chips for today?  _

Zaphod stared at the bag of chips, slack-jawed, gears turning futilely in his mind as they searched for an answer. 

_ Laundry’s about done,  _ the voice informed him.  _ I’ll see you next time you decide to try introspection, buddy.  _

“I didn’t decide on anything,” Zaphod managed, weakly. But the voice was back to saying what he wanted it to, when he wanted it to, as his thoughts usually did when he wasn’t overcome with things like identity crises.

As he sat on the bench opposite his laundry, Zaphod tried to clear his mind. He’d learned some nifty methods from some retired monks, and he currently had every mental weapon in his arsenal trained on that nagging little voice that had been bothering him all day. However, no matter what stone he turned over, he couldn’t seem to find the damn thing. Sweet zarquon, he was just too smart for his own good.

“Ex… excuse me, sir?”

Zaphod blinked out of his haze and glanced up at the young woman standing next to him. She was trembling like a leaf, holding a child (presumably her own) in one hand and a load of laundry in the other. “Yeah?”

“Sorry, but… could you spare a coin? The machine… well, someone took my clothes out and put in their own while I was watching her, and we just need half a credit to finish up, and I was wondering if you could --”

Zaphod was tired of talking to this woman and reached for his wallet. He handed over an altarian dollar, which he was fairly sure evened out to about a credit, maybe a bit more. “Here, I don’t have change. Buy yourself something nice.”

The woman thanked him profusely and hurried back to her machine. Zaphod turned back to the dryer and continued to watch his clothes spin. He was faintly aware of something clicking behind him, but deigned to ignore it.  _ _ He had bigger matters on his minds.

_ You know, Tricia -- _

He dived after his train of thought with the vigor and intent of a coonhound who had just caught the scent.

The next morning, Zaphod walked out into his (clean) spaceship and grabbed a (clean) mug, then set his (clean) coffee pot on to brew. He reached into his (clean) fridge and pulled out a (healthy) piece of fruit, some specialty from that little planet that he’d picked up on a whim (as he dutifully did his chores) yesterday. Biting into it, he pulled up his schedule. Visiting some small stops, making some small bribes, nothing big today. He smeared away some of the fruit’s juice on the (clean) sleeve of his sleep-shirt and pulled up the news, which, as always, automatically searched out things about him first. 

Once again, Zaphod Beeblebrox blinked in surprise. 

_ Just yesterday, Zaphod Beeblebrox of Betelgeuse Five, current candidate for president of the galaxy, was spotted doing his laundry.  _

Zaphod couldn’t see why  _ that  _ was news. He scrolled on, briefly admiring a picture of himself contemplatively watching his wash spin. When you were this handsome, it was easy to get used to strangers taking pictures of you going about your day. He flicked past most of the text until he finally landed on a picture of himself handing over a dollar to the young woman. The caption read:

_ Zaphod Beeblebrox, being of the beings? _

Intrigued, he sipped his coffee (now with cream) and settled in to read. 

_ Beeblebrox, known across the galaxy for his fairly hedonistic and shallow lifestyle --  _

He nodded. This sounded good so far.

_ \-- was spotted yesterday in a laundromat just outside of Polaris, doing some on-the-spot charity work for a young woman who was unable to pay for her load of laundry. This is, clearly,  _ not  _ the image Beeblebrox has looked to project throughout his campaign, and this reporter can confirm that there were no other cameras on the premises. Could it be that Zaphod Beeblebrox’s lifestyle is all in the effort of hiding the secret, being of the beings man in favor of his party boy image? This reporter is certainly interested!  _

Zaphod curled his lip at that.  _ Of course it’s not,  _ he told himself, shutting the screen off and tossing it on the counter.  _ I’m not some zarking philanthro -- oh, hey, my brains are back under my control.  _

One of the screens at the front of the ship dinged, and he leaned forward and squinted at it. 

_ Saw the article in the galaxy gazette. Liking this new angle. Meet me later, we’ll arrange more nice stuff you can be filmed doing.  _

He sipped his coffee and squinted suspiciously at the message from his manager. Hm. 

Leaning back against the counter, he stared into his mug and idly swirled it. The cream (still not fully mixed in, he used so much) swirled listlessly around. 

_ Maybe Trillian is good for us.  _

For the first time, he didn’t go diving after that voice with a pitchfork. Instead, he sat back and took a long sip of his coffee, making a few extra plans for next Saturday.


	5. The Tender Chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They were silent for a moment, just staring at each other.   
“You think I’m pretty, Zaphod?” She asked. The way she said it did not break the silence, merely sent a ripple over it.

“Doctor Tricia McMillian, aka Trillian Astra, log one, day twenty-eight.” Trillian mumbled into her recorder, more focused on the task at hand then making a record of it. “Through some arrangements with the chemistry department at the university and a little study of my own, I’ve procured the means to finally get to testing some of these alien soils. Our control will be a sample taken from the Earth, just outside of this researcher’s own home. Now --”  
“So you’re playing in the mud,” Zaphod asked from where he was leaned against the fridge, watching the whole display with a smidge of amusement.   
“Shut up,” Trillian responded, not missing a beat. “And if you’re not going to shut up, announce yourself for the tape.”  
Zaphod chuckled a little, leaning over the chunky recorder with his perpetual self-satisfied smile. “Zaphod Beeblebrox, higher life form, reporting in.”  
She pushed his head away with a snicker. “You’re a twat.”  
He went back to the fridge, digging out a bottle of Janx and taking a good sip of it.   
“As is well known, one of the most important aspects of fertile soil on Earth is a good balance of nitrogen, obtained through the decomposition of organic lifeforms.” She put a small sample of mud into a smaller dish containing some liquid Zaphod hadn’t bothered to look into and pushed it around with a little glass rod. “Therefore, when looking for good extra-terrestrial soil, it should be best to start by looking for the presence of Nitrogen.” Trillian flicked on her Bunsen burner and held the glass rod over it. After a moment, the flame changed to a nearly-white blue. “Brilliant, all right. Earth’s soil has reacted exactly as planned.”  
“Sweet zarquon, what are you doing?” Zaphod asked, staring in shock at the whole display.  
Trillian looked up, haughtily cocking an eyebrow. “Impressive, yeah? Tell me, is it hard to have empirical evidence that you’re not the smartest one in the room?”  
“I may not be the smartest, babe,” Zaphod returned, the other head taking another heavy sip of his bottle of Janx, “But I am more advanced.”   
Trillian laughed. “Oh, sure thing, Zaph. Experiment two,” she said, returning to her work. “Sample two, soil from Andromeda four.”  
Zaphod plucked something that looked a lot like one of Earth’s thermometers off the side of his fridge and dropped it in the tiny bag she had just opened. A little digital readout popped up, reading: Carbon, 40%, Oxygen, 20%, Zinc, 35%. Tap here for further details.  
Trillian stared at the readout blankly.  
“You’re telling me,” she said after a long moment, “that all this time, while I was quibbling with the chemistry professor, teaching myself complicated methods of deriving chemical compositions, and sitting on pins and needles waiting to be able to get to work on these samples, you’ve had a little doo-dad that you can just shove in there and tell me everything I need to know in less then a second?”  
“Yep.”  
“This… this is… this is fascinating,” Trillian gushed, plucking the device out and turning it over. She brushed the dirt off and watched as it flipped over to a readout of the air around them. “I can’t believe it. You must use this to make sure the air supply in your ship is on-track, right?”  
“Yes,” Zaphod lied. He used it to tell if he’d mixed his drinks right.   
“Brilliant, bloody brilliant,” she muttered, turning it over in her hands. She stuffed it into the remaining Earth sample and marveled at the readout. Checking her notes, she made the tiniest squeak of delight. “Oh, this is BRILLIANT!”  
“Glad you like it,” Zaphod said, making a mental note to clean that off later. As he watched Trillian excitedly test the sensor on a number of surfaces, quickly figuring out how to access things like the compounds and possible reactions panels, he found himself reeling.   
Oh.   
This wasn’t witty banter.   
This wasn’t sardonic quips.  
This was just really, really nice.  
“God, I almost feel silly bringing all of this stuff up, now,” he heard her say, blinking out of his haze. Trillian pushed a handful of her thick black hair back, wrangling it up into a messy bun. “The good news is, it looks like I won’t have to dogsit for Greg’s awful little pug anymore.”  
“I’m --”  
Sorry I didn’t offer it before, he barely stopped himself from saying.   
Oops! He fell right back into that haze again.   
Zaphod Beeblebrox? Sorry? No, no, no, not possible. Other people thanked him for making whatever room he was in a real hoopy place to be, and he might accept their thanks with a “you’re welcome,” but he hardly ever touched the third member of that little trio.  
What was happening to him?  
“Zaphod? ...Zaphod?”  
He blinked.   
“You alright?” Trillian asked, head slightly askew.   
“What? Course I’m fine, baby,” he lied, taking a very long pull of his bottle. “Why wouldn’t I be?”  
“I don’t know, maybe you’re drinking that a little too fast,” Trillian said, making her way around the table towards him. “Put it down for a minute,” she continued, reaching up and taking the bottle.  
Zaphod felt like a king dethroned by a donkey. He watched, slack-jawed, as she took the bottle to her nose and gave it a whiff.   
“Smells fine, actually.”  
Zaphod stared at her.  
“Might have a sip of it when I’m done with the testing, yeah?” She corked the bottle and stepped around Zaphod, replacing it in the fridge and going back around to the side of the table with her notes. “Been a while since I cut loose on a Saturday. You wouldn’t mind, right?”  
Zaphod blinked, once again, but this time found he was not out of the haze. “Erm… no, yeah, that… sure.”  
“Great!” Trillian chirped, rewinding her tape a deal. “Just give me a few minutes. Shouldn’t take long at all.”  
“... Right, yeah,” Zaphod said, very intelligently, before he went over and sank into his couch.

“It’s just an awful little creature, really,” Trillian slurred, swirling her drink so the ice cubes clattered. “Comes to your ankle. Perfect kicking height, if you ask me. Sounds like it’s a moment from death at all times. And worse, sometimes he’ll bring it around the office,” she snarled. “Imagine that! Trying to calculate the orbit of Jupiter's moons or some shit, and there’s just a nastly little pug licking your ankles. I told him to have it put down and he reported me to HR. Really, I think it’d do the thing a favour!”  
The bottle of janx on the table was long emptied. Zaphod, experiencing a pleasant buzz, was watching Trillian try to focus on the three of him swaying in and out of focus. That was janx for you. He’d practically had the stuff in his baby bottle, so he often forgot that it was terribly potent.   
“You don’t drink very often, do you?” Zaphod asked with a chuckle, taking a sip of his drink.   
“Nope!” Trillian chirped, taking a massive slug of her own. She set the emptied glass aside and pinched at her lips. “Oh, my face is a bit numb.”  
Zaphod drew back a bit. “Is that normal for your species?”  
“Erm… s’called face-drunk, dunno…” she picked up the bottle and re-read the label. “This shit will send you to Mars, huh?”  
“We can go to Mars, if you want. Not a lot to do.”  
“Turn-of-phrase, Beebleboy,” she giggled, setting the bottle aside. “Your fancy babelfish can’t do it all, I guess.”  
“Doesn’t translate idiot, is the only issue.”  
“Fuck off!” she laughed, giving him a little shove. “God, I have missed being drunk!”  
“What, you too busy with science to go out drinking every once in a while?” Zaphod asked, leaning in a bit.  
“No, no, just ... “ she trailed off, picking her glass back up and watching the ice cubes slide around. “S’not safe, is all. Don’t have a pack of girlfriends to go out with. Think the last time I went out was… oh, that one party. You know. The one we met at. The house party?”  
Zaphod hummed his agreement. It was rare that he didn’t have anything to add. For some reason, he was content to sit in a pleasant haze and listen to her speak. It was nice, so he took it at face value.  
“You know, had some doubts about going to that place,” she continued, watching the ice cubes clatter from one side of the glass to the other. “But I told myself: Tricia, if you’re not safe there, where the hell are you going to be safe? How on Earth are you going to be the weird one in the room in a party organized by and for weird ones? S’why I didn’t blink an eye with you having a parrot on your shoulder. Thought, ‘oh, some new thing the communities doing these days,’ and just went with it.” she picked up the bottle and tried to fill her glass again. “You have any more?”  
“No,” Zaphod said, lying. “I think you’re good for now anyways,” he said, telling the truth.  
“Shame,” she slurred, “it’s bloody good stuff. Or, what’s that thing you spacemen say? Zarc? Zarcing good stuff,” she said, satisfied.   
“Yeah, baby. You sound like a native,” Zaphod chuckled. He settled against the back of the couch, still leaning towards her, like he wouldn’t miss a word she said. The pleasant haze hadn’t left him this whole time, and he still, shockingly, found that he had nothing to say.   
“What was I saying?” she asked.  
“Something about the parrot,” he replied.  
“Right, yeah, the parrot,” she continued, cushioning her head with her arm as she leaned against the back of the couch. As her eyes lolled towards shut, Zaphod couldn’t help but notice that she was slowly inching closer. “You know, girl like me, can be hard to get anyone’s attention. Least, the right kind of attention. This has been nice, yeah? Coming up on this spaceship. You’re a knob, but you’re fun. Don’t have a lot of the same hang-ups as men do planet-side. And,” she said, setting the bottle and glass aside once again before leaning in and dropping her voice to a whisper. “You’re the only man I’ve ever met who’s lived up to his bragging.”  
She leaned back, laughing in a way one could only call cackling, and Zaphod found himself beaming as he turned away, laughing as she thoroughly lost her mind. “That’s Zaphod Beeblebrox for you, baby!” he announced, giving her a nudge with his elbow. “Best bang since the big one!”  
“Dis-gusting,” she laughed, thumbing away a tear. “Every bit of good sense I have tells me that you’re no good,” she said between giggles, “but here I am! Keep getting back on your ship, don’t I?” she scooted towards him, leaning against his shoulder. One of her arms managed to find its way around his waist, her other hand landed on his stomach. Zaphod felt himself straighten up, ever-so-slightly. “Guess I don’t think you’re that annoying. Guess I don’t think you’re that annoying at all,” she said, voice lowering to a bassey mumble.   
One of Zaphod’s heads watched as she nuzzled into the other head’s neck. Her eyes finally lolled shut, and he felt her warm breath as she chuckled, ever-so-quietly. Her hand on his stomach was trailing down, and he could feel her leaning her entire weight against him as she sighed, content, hand trailing lower --   
As her hand traveled down, he simply placed his own in its’ path, taking it as they met. He closed his hand around hers -- little, warm, with well-maintained fingernails now encrusted with dirt from her experiments before.  
“Let’s get you home,” he said, quiet.  
Alcohol has always been a nice extra bit of cushioning when it came to teleportation, so Trillian came out of it nothing more then dizzy. Zaphod blinked off the headache and looked around the dark apartment they were now standing in. “Nice place,” he noted, helping her stumble to her room.   
“S’a bloody mess, yeah?” she laughed. “Suppose I’m a bloody mess as well. Sorry you’re seeing me like this, Beeble -- ah, fuck it,” she said as he helped her down onto her bed, “Zaphod. Za-phod. You know, I like your name. Been around a bit of the universe, now, and it’s a handsome name. Handsome name for a handsome man,” she slurred, pitching forward precariously as she reached for her shoes.   
“Let me get that,” Zaphod said, still quiet. He kneeled, pulling off her shoes and settling them by the bedside table. He felt a hand running through his hair and looked up.  
She was looking down at him, bleary-eyed, with a lopsided smile. The kind that’s pulled a little too hard to be genuine. Her hand traveled down, taking a hold of his chin, and her thumb stroked across his cheek with the weight of a thousand words.   
They were silent for a moment, just staring at each other.   
“You think I’m pretty, Zaphod?” She asked. The way she said it did not break the silence, merely sent a ripple over it.   
Zaphod felt his heart skip a beat. His mind searched, desperately, for something witty to say. Something snarky, funny, dipped in innuendo and just one step removed from what he really wanted to say.   
“I think you’re gorgeous,” is what came out in a half-awed whisper.   
Trillian beamed so wide that her whole face lit up, eyes scrunching shut as she leaned back, giggling just a bit. “You’re soft,” she laughed, heaving her legs up onto the bed with a great effort as he stood back up. “Soft as a marshmallow, under all that mean you pretend to be,” she teased, face flushed as she finally flopped back onto her pillows. She snuggled in, kicking the sheets in a futile attempt to wiggle under them. He grabbed them and pulled them up to her chin, where she cuddled into them with a contented sigh.   
“Night, Trillian,” Zaphod said, patting her on the shoulder as her eyes slipped shut.   
“Wait!” her eyes snapped back open, and with a great deal of effort, she popped herself up on her elbow. She reached out, opening and closing her hand like she was asking for something.   
Zaphod leaned a bit closer to ask, and her hand found his tie. She tugged him down gently and, softly, kissed him on the lips.   
It only lasted for a moment.   
Then she pulled back and smiled at him again. “Night, Zaphod.”  
Her hand slipped back off of his tie and flopped onto the bed. She yawned, cuddling into the pillow with a content smile.   
He stepped back, slowly, eyes still locked on her. He had nothing to say. What could he possibly say? His heart was in one of his throats, and the other hadn’t found a single sentence to put together yet.   
He reached for the remote for the teleporter in his pocket. His thumb brushed over the button, but right before he pressed it, he heard Trillian mutter something, half-asleep.  
“Come by for dinner tomorrow, yeah?”  
He opened one of his mouths to respond and found he couldn’t.   
So instead, he pressed the button, and left her to sleep.


	6. Two Adults Talk About their Feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I don’t know if Betelgeuse boys are just raised differently, though in all other effects it seems they aren’t, but that’s a sign of a few things.” She popped a carrot into her mouth and pointed the fork at his dumbstruck face. “One, that you’re a good guy under all the act, and two, you actually want me around long-term, because you’re willing to put off one night with me for my trust going forward.” She looked at him, pleased, and took a sip of her wine. “Am I right? Don’t answer that. Because I am.”

“I’ve decided,” Trillian said, popping a roasted carrot into her mouth. “Despite it all, I’d like to date you.”

Zaphod choked on his wine.

They were sitting in her nice little apartment, which was honestly only a little cleaner than it had been last night. But the effort was there. She’d put together a nice little dinner -- roasted vegetables, chicken with some packet of supermarket marinade, rice. Cheap bottle of wine on the side. Nothing too crazy, but pretty damn good for someone nursing a literally out-of-this-world hangover.

“Now, I’m still fighting my hangover, but I was thinking about it all day.” She sliced off a hunk of chicken and popped it in her mouth. “You know, I’ve never been one for blacking out, so. I remember it all. And I can ignore your bravado for a minute, here. So. Thoughts?”

Zaphod, whos coughing fit had been talked right over, straightened up. “Wh… you can’t just… baby, Zaphod Beeblebrox doesn’t  _ date, _ ” He managed after clearing his throat. “I’m a rolling stone, travel from planet to planet, pick up ladies on the way. Can’t deprive the universe of this by tying it down to one woman.”

Trillian raised one eyebrow. “Right.”

“Just wouldn’t be humane,” he claimed. “Like, you wouldn’t keep a feast to yourself when you see other people starving, right, baby?”

“Guess I wouldn’t,” she said, taking an unamused sip of her wine. 

Zaphod felt his control on the conversation slipping. “I mean, don’t get it wrong, I’d love to keep you around. We can still do your little science experiments, go flying around, a little dinner at a nice place here and there. But I’m not a satellite, baby. I’m a comet. Soaring off to the next big thing. Can’t be orbiting around one rock for the rest of my life, you dig?”

“I don’t know if this is merely an error with the babelfish,” Trillian said, now no longer touching her food, “but you do know that comets orbit, yes?”

“Course I do,” he said, lying.

“Really, the only difference between a satellite and a comet is that a comet’s course is more likely to slowly change over time, drawn to the largest astrological body,” she continued, picking up her fork and examining it. “That and composition.”

“Oh, keep talking dirty to me,” Zaphod purred, leaning in.

“And when a comet comes hurtling into a planet, well, unless it’s a particularly big comet, but for the purpose of this example we’ll assume it’s not, the planet will be temporarily damaged --” she stabbed her fork into the chicken with a shocking amount of force. “-- but the comet will be completely destroyed.”

Zaphod sat for a moment in the icy silence. 

“Hold on,” he said after a moment. “I’m having some trouble with this metaphor.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned. 

“So I’m the comet, and you’re the planet. Yeah?”

“Zaphod --”

“So I should come crashing into you? But then I’ll be destroyed? But I  _ have  _ come crashing into you a few times now, and --”

“Stop. Stop. Shut up. Okay,” Trillian sighed. “What I’m saying is. We’re better working together, like how a satellite does. We kind of pull on each other and stay steady that way. But if you’re off doing God-knows, you’re still going to keep being drawn back to me, and both of us are going to be hurt by it. Understand now?”

“Yes, actually.”

Trillian stared at him, pointedly. “So?”

“Well, who’s to say I’ll keep being drawn back to you?” Zaphod replied, trying to nonchalantly sip his wine while repressing his panic at his genuine attraction to her being uncovered.

Trillian sat back and sighed. “I don’t know how things are on Betelgeuse five, but you understand that last night was nearly an anomaly, correct?”

He squirmed in his seat. “Uh,” he managed, intelligently. 

“A lot of guys, if it’s a girl they’re attracted to -- and you’re attracted to me, yes?”

“Yeah.” No point in lying there, at least.

“They get them plastered drunk, wait for them to get a little flirty, take them to bed,” she continued. “Then a girl wakes up the next morning, embarrassed and realizing he’s not as handsome as she thought --”

“Hey, now --”

“-- And walks home with her heels in her hand, making a mental note to screen for his calls,” she finished. “But you didn’t. You got me home, you tucked me into bed, hell, you even pushed my hand off of you a few times. I don’t know if Betelgeuse boys are just raised differently, though in all other effects it seems they aren’t, but that’s a sign of a few things.” She popped a carrot into her mouth and pointed the fork at his dumbstruck face. “One, that you’re a good guy under all the act, and two, you actually want me around long-term, because you’re willing to put off one night with me for my trust going forward.” She looked at him, pleased, and took a sip of her wine. “Am I right? Don’t answer that. Because I am.”

Zaphod’s right mouth fell open, struggled for something to say, then snapped shut. His left mouth fell open, struggled for something to say, then snapped shut. Deprived of his options, he stared at her, mutely, processing the fact that his whole soul had just been flayed and laid on the table as a piece of set dressing. 

Trillian, after a moment, sighed. “Maybe I’ve been harsh.”

“Maybe,” Zaphod managed, “Maybe?”

“But, look, just…” she sighed and nervously adjusted her vegetables, eyes dropping to the plate. “I like you. An awful lot, against all odds. And I’m pretty sure you like me as well. You do, yeah?” she glanced up at him. “Be honest, I won’t tell anyone.”

Zaphod swallowed. This was a hard thing to do with a lump in both throats. “Yeah. I do, okay. I like you.”

“Good, right,” she said, a tiny smile pulling at her lips for the briefest moment. “This just doesn’t happen to me all that often, alright? She admitted, eyes dropping back to the plate. “This doesn’t happen to girls like me.”

“...I know this isn’t the topic we’re on, but what do you mean by that? You’ve said that before.”

She rolled her eyes. “Look, it’s sweet that you pretend to not know, but --”

“I’m not pretending anything,” he said. “And I hate admitting that I don’t know things. So can you just tell me so I don’t have to anymore?”

“We’ve had sex, Zaphod,” she spat, glaring up at him. “You’re just going to say you didn’t notice?”

“Notice  _ what, _ ” Zaphod asked, getting exasperated. “Trillian, baby, this is driving me crazy, I don’t know WHAT I was SUPPOSED to notice --”

“I’m TRANSGENDER, okay, asshole? Jesus  _ christ,  _ there, I said it,” she snapped, throwing her fork to the table. “I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea. You’re hard to handle even when I’m not nursing the worst hangover I’ve had in my entire life. Look, I’ll give you some tupperware, see you next weekend --”

“How was I supposed to know that!” Zaphod exclaimed, throwing two of his arms up. “You think I pick up a lot of Earth women?”

“No, but you talk about all the women across the galaxy that you’re constantly --”

“Yeah, baby, and tits are about all they’ve got in common!”

“You’re DISGUSTING,” she snapped. 

“I’m just being honest!”

“You... just… you …” she buried her face in her hands and groaned. 

“Besides, why would I zarking care?” he asked, crossing a few of his arms. “People do it all the time on Betelgeuse. A little extra paperwork, but whatever. Actually had a friend in school who had one head female, the other male. They fell into a black hole during the senior prank, but they’re probably fine. Wonder what they’re up to, though, sometimes.”

Trillian stared at him for a long moment. She took a deep breath and shook her head, smudging something away from her eyes with the palm of her hand. “Well, it’s a big deal here, all right?”

“... Oh,” he said, dumbly. 

They sat in silence for a long moment. 

Finally, Zaphod sighed. “Didn’t know that. I’m… I’m sorry,” he said, stumbling over the word. It felt odd in his mouth. 

“Wow. I’ve never once heard you apologize for something,” she said, palming away another tear.

“Look, Trillian… how about this,” he said, placing a hand over where one of hers was sitting on the table. “I’m not going to break off and marry you tonight, alright? But… yeah, okay, you’ve got me. I like you. You’ve grown on me, at the very least. Give me… give me a week,” he decided. “Give me a week and I’ll sort out my thoughts.”

She took a deep breath in and nodded. “I’m sorry I sprang it on you,” she said after a moment. “I understand, I suppose. Not wanting to settle down, with the whole galaxy out there. But you understand, right? Why I’m upset?” she blinked back her tears. “Because you have the whole galaxy to dart off into at any moment, and I’d just be stuck here for the rest of my life.”

His eyes drifted down to their hands. He hadn’t told himself to do this, but his thumb was moving slowly over her knuckles. It was one of the many recent developments that he’d had no say in. But he didn’t stop. 

“I do,” he said, truthfully. 

“Good,” she sighed. 

There was a moment of silence.

“God,” Trillian laughed bitterly. “You must think I’m fucking crazy.”

“I’ve seen crazier,” he said, completely honestly, with a shrug.

“Alright,” she said, smearing away the last of her tears and standing up. “Alright. That’s done with. Help me clear the table, let’s watch a movie or something, yeah?”

“What happens if I don’t clear the table?”

“I think even less of you then I already do,” she said, brushing into the kitchen. 

Zaphod turned to his plate and blinked at it. His lip twitched, and after a moment, he stood and collected it and walked into the kitchen. 

That night, they watched some cheesy rom-com Trillian dug out of her movie cabinet. They got about thirty minutes in before finding a more entertaining way to spend the time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theres another three chapters baby!!! fun fact one time i explained the entire plot of hgtg to my friends (unprompted, they hated it) and as soon as I explained the bit where Trillian fucked off to space and changed her name one of them was immediately like "oh, trans" and like... energy?? finally someone understands this book. so i put it in there bc i love it and i love her and sometimes ya just gotta write some dumb wish fullfilment shit about a sexy idiot who definitely takes the strap whisking you off to space. anyways. working through the last three (?) which is very sexy of me i think. enjoy!


	7. The Wacky In-laws

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well, come in!” his mother chirped, beckoning them forward. “Zaphod, we’ve been following your campaign. You’re a spineless worm who has no place being in a position of power, we’re so proud!”

“Trillian Astra, day 27, log one,” Trillian chirped into her recorder. “I am happy to report that several of the earth and water samples taken yielded evidence of being able to support human life.” She consulted her notepad and smiled. “So, global warming be damned, I guess. All we need to do is figure out rockets, and we’re off to destroy the next one!”

“You all haven’t cracked global warming yet?” Zaphod asked. 

“No, and it seems they have no plans to,” Trillian sighed, shutting off her recorder. “Why did you think I was looking into this?”

“Colonialism,” Zaphod shrugged. 

“Guess that’s not a bad guess,” Trillian admitted. “Seeing as we’re still at it on Earth and all.”

Zaphod hummed in lieu of responding and pulled around a comet. 

“I noticed, you’re not in your fancy suits,” Trillian said after a moment.

“Huh? Oh, we’re not doing a campaign stop.” He said, eyes trained on the GPS.

“Really?” She asked, sitting up. “Where are we going?”

Zaphod watched the screen flicker with instructions to the nearest parking area. Carefully, he entered the atmosphere, skimming a few miles until the computer pinged and confirmed where he was. 

“Zaphod, I said --”

“Hold on, I’m being quiet for dramatic effect.”

Trillian rolled her eyes.

With that, he lowered himself down gently into the driveway of his childhood home. 

“Betelgeuse five,” he announced, motioning to the tiny house before them. 

The ship depressurized with a hiss as the doors slid open. Zaphod hopped down and helped Trillian out after him, setting her on the soft green grass. 

“Is there a reason most of these planets look so much like Earth?” she asked, squatting down and patting the lawn. 

“Same neighborhood,” Zaphod answered with a shrug. “It’s a phenomena that happens out here. Farther out you get, the more different you get. We’re actually fairly close, all things considered.”

“Yes, but why?”

“Beats me,” he shrugged. “God? Probably not, but it’s a convenient answer.”

Trillian was stopped from any further line of questioning by two excited voices from the doorway. 

“Zaphod!” They chirped in unison. This was probably aided by the fact that the woman in the doorway had two heads. Trillian realized that she shouldn’t have expected anything else. 

“Hey, mom,” he said, trying to sound very cool as his mother wrapped him in a hug and covered his cheeks in kisses.

“Is Zaphod here?” asked a voice from inside the house, this one male.

“He’s home, dear, I told you, he’d be by at six!”

“At six? It’s seven-thirty!”

“Traffic,” Zaphod explained, trying to push her off and wipe the slobber away at the same time.

“Zaphod, there wasn’t any traffic,” Trillian teased, standing back up. She held her hand out for a shake. “Trillian Astra, so nice to meet you!”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Zaphod’s mother chirped, wrapping her in a hug. She planted a kiss on her cheek and pulled back to yell towards the door. “Slygie, round of Jinnan Tonax, love?”

“On it!” A new female voice answered. 

“You have a sister?” Trillian asked, turning to Zaphod.

“No, I’m an only child.”

“Then who’s Slygie?”

“My wife!” Zaphod’s mother said, beaming. “She actually just married in, it’s very exciting.”

Confusion crossed Trillian’s face. “Ah, that’s… great, right, then, who was the man?”

“My husband,” his mother said, still beaming. 

“But… oh. Oh. Oh! Okay, right. That’s wonderful, congratulations,” Trillian said, giving her a smile. 

“Well, come in!” his mother chirped, beckoning them forward. “Zaphod, we’ve been following your campaign. You’re a spineless worm who has no place being in a position of power, we’re so proud!”

Zaphod nearly blushed at the praise. Really, have the whole multiverse throw itself at your feet and no compliment would phase you anymore, excepting those that came from your mother. 

He felt Trillian’s eyes on him and turned to her. Her expression said, very plainly,  _ suddenly a lot of things make sense. _

He raised his eyebrows, effectively communicating,  _ why else would I have brought you here? _

She smiled and shook her head, and he reached back and took her hand, and they followed his mother in for drinks. 

“Oh, I knew he was destined for politics,” his first mother, whose name was Yexel, chirped. “Zaphod’s just always had a taste for lying. You remember, when Pratex had just joined the family, and --”

“Mom,” Zaphod complained, hiding behind his drink. “She doesn’t need to hear  _ everything _ .”

Trillian leaned in. “Will it embarrass him horribly?”

Yexel leaned in herself, smiling a little bigger than Trillian figured was natural. “ _ Horribly.” _

Trillian straightened and looked at Zaphod smugly. “I’d love to hear it.”

“ _ Mom,” _ Zaphod hissed. 

“So, we were all out to a bar, right? The one down the way, it’s called the Gulley Snatch. We have to take you down there sometime, our family has been going for generations. Anyways, Pratex had just married my brother, and we were out celebrating -- Zaphod, how old were you?”

“Donlie’thistory,” Zaphod grumbled. 

“Enunciate, dear.”

“Seventy,” he sighed, slugging back his drink and pouring himself another. 

“Seventy, that sounds right.”

“Wait, what?” Trillian asked, turning to him. “How old are you?”

“Two hundred and five,” Zaphod answered, swirling his drink. “Thirty-two Earth years. Different time zone.”

Trillian sat back in her chair and breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God. I thought you were some kind of intergalactic pedophile.”

“How old are you?” Yexel asked, concern crossing her face. 

“Thirty-five,” Trillian replied. “So, what’s that in Betelgeuse years?”

“Two-twenty something,” Zaphod supplied, happy to be on a different topic.

“Whew!” Yexel laughed, sitting back and faux wiping her brow. “Zaphod, you’re a politician, but I won’t have you going  _ that _ far.”

She earned some laughter from the table. 

“So, dad, how’s aunt --”

“Don’t change the subject,” his father replied. “I love this story.”

“Oh, the story!” Yexel chirped. “So, he was seventy years old, right? What, about… ten? Ten, on Earth?”

Zaphod groaned and sank into his seat. Trillian nodded emphatically. 

“And we left him outside to get acquainted with his new semicousin, Ix.” She settled back, staring into the middle distance as one is wont to do when recalling something. “Because the adults were inside chatting, and if kids his age drink, their brains liquify, so we didn’t let him drink much.”

“You’re sure about that?”

Trillian earned a laugh from the table. She smiled, proudly. Zaphod sank lower. 

“So, we’ve been going for a few hours, trusting them to entertain themselves. Finally, I go out and check, and the two of them are gone.” She took a sip of her drink and pointed to Zaphod. “We’ve had a tracker sewn into his clothes, of course, we aren’t stupid. I go get Pratex, and we follow the signal back to him. Find the two of them by this tree, must have been two, three times as tall as the house. Ix is bawling his eyes out nearly at the very top, and Zaphod is covered in slime from these things -- Galmanax seed-pods, they’re called. Smell like rotten zarking garbage, so I’m already thinking about how I’m going to have to barricade him in the bathroom until the whole house stops gagging. Zaphod’s sitting at the bottom of the tree, and I’ve never seen the boy look guilty in his life, but this is the closest. He sees me coming and really does it up --” She pouted her lip and made her eyes big and watery. “Like a kicked Glaxmartian. So I already know he’s about to feed me a line of pure bullshit. Does it to this day, the face.”

“I’ll keep an eye out,” Trillian laughed, glancing at Zaphod, who was now practically under the table. 

“You should. Lucky the media hasn’t caught wind, he’d be out in a heartbeat. Anyways, I pick him up and tell him to explain. He beckons me close, and he says, ‘Mommy,’ which, he never calls me mommy, it was always mom, so. He says, ‘Mommy, I’m sorry about all the trouble, Ix ran away and I didn’t want him to get hurt.’” I say, ‘Zaphod, why did he run up a tree?’ And he does this little sigh, see --” she sighed, casting her eyes to the side tragically, the picture of a little martyr. “‘He said he wanted to be closer to heaven, mommy. To see his daddy.’”

The table erupted into laughter. “Zaphod!” Trillian gasped, smacking his arm. Zaphod groaned. 

“I was  _ seventy,”  _ he whined, hiding behind his drink. “I’ve gotten a lot better at lying, now.”

“And Pratex literally turns to me. I’ve never seen a woman less impressed. She says, ‘That boy was raised without a lick of religion. He doesn’t know what heaven is, let alone that it’d be up there.’ And Zaphod went white as a sheet.” Yexel chuckled, swirling her drink. “So Pratex turns to Ix, and shouts up at him, ‘Ix, why are you up that tree?’ and he shouts back down, ‘Zaphod punched me in the face and made fun of my tiny head!’ and Pratex turns to him,” she said, pointing at the thoroughly shamed man across from her, “and says, ‘When he gets down, he gets to do the same to you.’ And Zaphod had a black eye for the next month.”

The table erupted into laughter, pounding the table, slapping Zaphod on the back, the whole nine yards. 

“Oh, I wish I’d been in when he was little,” Sylgie sighed, wiping away a tear. “I’ve heard so many stories. No wonder you’re an only child,” she said, leaning over and poking Zaphod. “I can’t imagine that they’d have been able to handle another one of you.”

“But wait,” Trillian piped up, leaning in. “Why were you making fun of Ix’s tiny head? Was he… I don’t know, disabled or something?”

“No, no, no,” Yexel assured. “Two heads is a Betelgeuse five thing, dear. Ix’s father was from Betelgeuse seven, but he married a five girl. So Ix just has this smudge --” she made a circle with her fingers over her shoulder, “So big, just a little mouth and a nose. Good party trick, he could make it talk and everything. But we had to sew the second head-hole shut on everything we bought him. Hand-me-downs were a nightmare.”

Confusion crossed Trillian’s face. “You just… don’t sell shirts with one hole in them? Isn’t there, I don’t know, immigration?”

“Well, not anymore,” Sylgie said into her glass. “Big anomaly crunched up the whole planet.”

Trillian gasped. “I’m so sorry!”

“Did you cause it?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“I… well, no,” Trillian admitted. “I’m just sorry in general, I suppose.”

“Happens all the time, dear,” Yexel supplied, patting her on the back. “Besides, the only thing we’re worried about collapsing and causing a black hole is Zaphod’s ego.”

Zaphod sighed into his glass. “You three are the biggest barrier between me and being elected, you know that, yeah?”

“We don’t tell anyone anything,” his father assured, drinking with his other head. 

“Besides, it’s nothing the universe doesn’t already know,” Trillian teased. 

“Actually,” Zaphod announced, straightening up in his chair, “I’ve revamped my image lately. Haven’t you been following?”

“Course we have,” Sylgie said. “Party boy with a heart of gold. It’s nearly your slogan.”

“I thought those pictures of you giving the girl a dollar were so sweet,” Yexel sighed. “How much did it cost to stage that one?”

“... Didn’t stage it, actually,” Zaphod admitted, glancing for a moment at Trillian. 

“What picture?” Trillian asked.

“You didn’t stage it?” Yexel echoed. 

“Hold on, I haven’t seen the --”

“Zaphod Beeblebrox, are you possessed?”

“No, I was just, I don’t know, had other things on my mind --” Zaphod defended, feebly. 

“I want to see the picture, I haven’t even heard about it!” Trillian said, once again.

“Sorry, sorry, dear --” Yexel reached into her pocket and, with a few swipes on a strange device Trillian had never seen, pulled up the article. “I mean, Zaphod, I know you’re sweet. I just also know that you wouldn’t be caught dead  _ being  _ sweet.”

Trillian skimmed the article with a furrowed brow. She reached the picture with the caption ‘Party boy no more?’ and turned to Zaphod. “Furthermore, what were you doing your laundry for?”

Zaphod groaned and topped off his drink. “You guys think I’m the nastiest bastard in the galaxy, don’t you?”

“You’ve never provided evidence to the contrary,” Trillian teased, handing the device back over. “You’ve worked hard to come across at a shallow-as-mud bastard. It’s odd to see you throw that away.”

Zaphod rolled his eyes. “I messed up, alright? There, you want me to say it?”

“Yes,” said Yexel and Trillian in unison, and the table erupted into another round of laughter. 

“Goodnight, you two! Get home safe!” Sylgie shouted after them, waving as they boarded the spaceship. 

“Zaphod, I  _ love  _ your family,” Trillian said, flopping down in the passenger seat.

Zaphod only sighed in response. 

“Oh, Zaph,” she laughed, jabbing his shoulder playfully as he sat down in the driver's seat. “Family is always embarrassing. It’s not like I could think any less of you.”

Zaphod continued to say nothing, just powered up the ship.

“... Hey,” she said, dropping her voice after a moment. “I really appreciated this, you know that, right?”

Zaphod softened slightly and glanced at her. He sighed, and a little smile tugged on his lips. “Yeah. I’m pretty great, huh?”

“Pretty hoopy frood,” she tried. 

“You sound ridiculous,” he teased, lifting off. “Like a kid learning to swear for the first time.”

She waved him off. “So, you know in Earth terms, this puts us pretty solidly in the dating category, right?”

He gave her a theatrical sigh. “If it must be.”

“Come on,” she whined, tugging on his sleeve. “Say it.”

“Alright, alright!” he laughed, waving her off. “We’re dating. At least in Earth terms. There, are you happy?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a smile split her face. Her eyes scrunched nearly shut, and she turned away, looking out the window. She looked, in short, very pleased. 

“Very,” she said, watching the stars pass. 

Zaphod watched, for a moment, the way that the deep brown eyes in her reflection flickered in the window. 

And, he had to admit, he was pretty happy as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did yall think i was dead? i did too


	8. Trillian and Zaphod Fuck Up a Debate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So far, things were going perfectly according to plan. He’d stumbled, fumbled, gaffed, messed up, screwed up, every flaw in the book.

Zaphod checked his notes. Today, he was running with an environmental angle. Clean up the space detritus in sector zeta 60-40 zalbog, he would promise, fingers crossed. Not that he didn’t think it was a good idea. He just knew it wasn't going to happen, especially not under him, because under him absolutely nothing would be happening except the inflation of his own ego and a few passable murals. 

“Ladies, gentlemen, dogpeople,” Zaphod addressed to the mirror, “So nice to see you all today, yeah? How’re we all doing tonight?”

“Boo!” Trillian jeered from behind him. She appeared at his shoulder in the mirror and nudged him out of the way, refastening her head scarf. “Down with the tyrant Beeblebrox! His heads on a pike! Pop ‘em on like a kebab, we’ve only got the one!”

“Very funny,” Zaphod growled, pushing her back out of the way to adjust his hair. “Up or down?”

“Half up, half down,” she said, stepping in front of him and holding a few different sets of earrings up, pursing her lips in deep thought as she flipped between two.

Zaphod sighed, then took the top layer of his hair and twisted it into a bun. This worked, anyways. He had a full head of height on her and already knew that he looked absolutely cut in his suit, because he always did.

Trillian settled on a pair of dangly gold stars she’d picked up on Earth. “Oh, let me try something,” she said, turning and gently grabbing him by the hair.

“ _ Ow,  _ baby, damn, wait until after the speech,” he teased, giving her a wolfish smile. 

Trillian rolled her eyes with a fond smile. “You’re a dog.”

“Woof, woof.”

“You’re also zarking corny,” she laughed, finishing the first thin braid. She moved to the other side of his first head and got to work. “You talk like a retired Elvis impersonator in a bad porno.”

“You watch a lot of bad pornos with retired Elvis impersonators in them?” Zaphod asked, finally stooping so she didn’t have to stand on her toes. “Pretty niche market.”

“Well, I feel like most Elvis impersonators wouldn’t have anywhere else to go,” she said with a little shrug. She used her teeth to pull the band around her wrist onto her hand and tied of the second braid, then wrapped it around and tucked the two together in the back. “There, a little fancier than usual, yeah?”

Zaphod admired the look in the mirror. “Do the other head.”

“What’s the magic word?”

“Now.”

Trillian cocked an eyebrow. 

“...Please.”

Smiling, she got to work on the other head. 

Zaphod watched her work in the mirror. She’d picked a tight red number today, and  _ wow,  _ was it making him want to throw the speech and stay on the spaceship. He set a hand on her hip, and when she pulled back a bit and cocked an eyebrow, he only smirked back and let it creep a little lower.

She gave him a playful smack on the cheek. “You’ve got a speech, Beebleboy,” she chastised, finishing the braid. “Maybe after. Depends how good the wine is.”

“The wine? On Sirius 4?” Zaphod asked, setting a hand over his heart in faux shock. “Baby, half of the planet is vineyards, and we’re going to a  _ very  _ nice dinner. Don’t worry your pretty head about how good the wine is.”

She chuckled and gave him a pat on the cheek. “Despite all appearances, you know how to treat a lady, huh?”

Zaphod shrugged. “It’s my cross to bear, I’m too good at all of this.”

Trillian rolled her eyes and moved to the passenger’s seat, where she flopped down and proceeded to fiddle with a few buttons. “So, Sirius four, then? Is Pheebos going to be there?”

“Of course she is,” Zaphod replied, settling into the driver’s seat. “I think this is the last push I need to overtake her. Not that she’ll be dropping out, but she might as well, if I nail this. And I will, because I’m very good at this.”

Trillian rolled her eyes. “Mm-hm.”

“Hey, I got us this far,” Zaphod defended, plugging in the coordinates. 

“Campaigning on nothing but how shiny your rings are,” she returned, popping her feet up on the dashboard.

“That’s all anyone campaigns on, baby.”

Trillian chuckled and settled back into her chair. “So, not to change the subject from praising you, but I’ve had something on my mind lately.”

“Oh, and you’re sure we can’t go back to praising me?”

Trillian rolled her eyes. “You said transgender… stuff isn’t that odd out here, right?”

“Right,” he confirmed, kicking the ship into drive. 

“And you’ve had a third arm added, so I know cosmetic surgery isn’t a lost art either.”

“Course not, are you kidding? Had a friend in high school who lost a bet and had to let his friends put a nose on his --”

“Great, great,” she said, waving the rest of the story away. “So it’s not a stretch to say that we could find a place to… you know, I don’t know how to say this… Oh, it has a name back on Earth, most people just call it ‘the fix,’ though…”

“Gender whatsit,” Zaphod tried, more focused on steering. “Rearrange some bits. I know what you’re getting at.”

“I’ve been trying to get an appointment on Earth, but it… hasn’t been going well,” she sighed. “I’ll leave it at that. So I was wondering if maybe we could poke around up here, try to figure something out?”

“Sure, sure.” He plugged a search into the computer and pulled up the name of his buddy who’d done his arm surgery. “You free on Wednesday?”

Trillian blinked. “What?”

“He’s got a spot in his schedule on Wednesday,” Zaphod repeated, pointing to the gap on the calendar he’d just pulled up. “I mean, just make a list of whatever it is you need. It’s the guy who did my arm surgery, actually. Hoopy guy, looks like a zarking mannequin from all the stitches he’s put in himself, but you’ll be unconscious for the surgery, so you won’t have to look at him.”

Trillian stared slack-jawed at him. Zaphod turned one head to give her a confused look. 

“What?”

“Just… Wednesday? I mean, I… what’s the recovery time like, how much does it cost, Zaphod, you can’t just drop it like it’s nothing --”

“I mean, you’d be back at work by Thursday,” Zaphod shrugged. “And… I don’t know, twenty dollars? Cook me a nice dinner one night and we’ll call it even.” 

Trillian stammered. “I. I mean. Oh my God, I mean… oh my God.”

“I mean, I can find you another guy,” Zaphod said, taken aback by her shock. “I just have a coupon for him.”

Trillian was, by now, curled up in the chair. Her legs were hugged to her chest, and she was staring at the floor, looking like she was solving some particularly complicated math in her head. 

“You good?” Zaphod asked, inching away slightly.

“Zaphod,” she said, voice slightly choked, “Do you know how hard it was for me to get Estrogen?”

“Uhm…” Zaphod squirmed in his chair. “Very? I don’t know. What’s estrogen?”

“It’s a medicine,” she explained, taking a steadying breath. “It’s a medicine that made me a little more female. Made my skin softer, gave me a chest, helped my hair grow.”

“My compliments to the chef,” he joked, desperately afraid of having a genuine conversation.

“I had to buy it off of some shady fuck a friend of a friend knew for… God, it’s almost twenty dollars a pop, now that I think about it,” she continued, ignoring his comment. “I’ve been doing it for years, now. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been sick, or had to miss a dose, or had to scramble to put together the money, or…” she took a shaky breath. “And now, you’re saying, twenty dollars and I’m good to go forever.”

Zaphod stared awkwardly ahead. “Uh. Yeah.”

She laughed. It bubbled up out of her until she was stooped over, holding her stomach, smiling so hard it hurt. 

Zaphod had no idea what to do with this, so he kept driving. 

“I fucking love  _ space! _ ” Trillian shrieked, throwing her arms into the air in a fit of delight. 

Zaphod laughed with her, after a moment. In the little mirror on the dash, he saw her thumb away a tear.

He didn’t bring it up. 

“Ladies, gentlemen, dogpeople,” Zaphod said to the crowd with a sweeping hand, “how are we all doing tonight?”

There was scattered applause from the crowd, like a slightly elevated golf clap.  _ Good enough,  _ Zaphod figured. It was about as rowdy as polite company was going to get. 

“I’d like to remind Mr. Beeblebrox that this is a debate, and not a standup set,” Pheebos said icily. This earned much more homogenous applause. 

Zaphod tried to not show his nerves. He made eye contact with Trillian, who gave him a little thumbs up. 

“Now,” said the moderator, adjusting her microphone, “Please remember to keep answers concise and focused. I’ve seen how these debates have gone on other planets, and here on Sirius 4 --”

“You’re more serious?” Zaphod asked, flashing her a smile. 

The moderator glared. “Do not interrupt me again, Beeblebrox.”

Zaphod stiffened slightly. He could feel Pheebos’ little eyes drilling into him. Oh, she had to look smug right now. He glanced at her. Oh, she looked smug right now. 

“Right,” he said, straightening his tie. This was fine. This was going according to plan, actually. He flashed a smile at the nearest camera. The camera operator sneered. 

Oh, Sirius 4. A planet where the predominant species had bred out the part of the brain responsible for things like humor and fun. Dopamine? There wasn’t a drop of it in the room. Zaphod was very out of place with his fun ties and slouched stance. And this was, of course, intentional. 

The universe at large likes to have fun. And today, on the podium, Zaphod would stand in the face of boringness and be a bold defender of fun. 

He would achieve this by being supremely zarking annoying to everyone in the room.

And while this was a noble goal, it didn’t make the glares any less sharp. The eyes needling him from around the room still stung. And, as of right now, he couldn’t hear the people laughing at home. 

He checked his nails and tried to look unbothered. It was a skill he had a lot of practice in. And, though he knew the effect was achieved, he would have still rather been anywhere else.

“Questions were submitted by the people and selected by a specially-appointed committee,” the speaker began once again. “If there is time, later, the floor will be opened to the public. Questions judged as non-concise or otherwise uninformative will lead to the asker being disposed of in the usual manner.”

Zaphod saw one of the armed guards by the microphone reshoulder his blaster. He swallowed hard and reminded himself that this was restrained to the general public. 

“First question,” sneered the speaker. “What are your thoughts on the very noisy and disruptive war in quadrant zeta-fifteen, which has been keeping our people up all night with its incessant, obnoxious light show?”

Zaphod took a deep breath, steadied himself, and prepared to do what he did best: piss people off. 

So far, things were going perfectly according to plan. He’d stumbled, fumbled, gaffed, messed up, screwed up, every flaw in the book. Pheebos, at this point, was downright elated. 

“Mr. Beeblebrox, are you going to answer my question?”

“What?” he asked, looking up from checking his reflection in the shine of the podium. “Sorry, missed it. Once again?”

The moderator’s eye twitched. A horrible smile curled up on Pheebos’ face. “I said, you can’t really expect the people of Sirius 5 to find another solution for their industrial waste so late in the game, can you?”

“Oh! Yes, I can, thank you for asking,” Zaphod smarmed into the microphone. There was a displeased murmur in the crowd. “Furthermore, I expect them to take care of the detritus in sector zeta 60-40 zalbog, seeing as they put it there.”

“In pursuit of  _ industry, _ ” the moderator snapped. 

“You’re not being very moderate,” Zaphod replied. 

“Moving  _ on,”  _ she snarled, shuffling her notes, “There have been rapidly climbing numbers of aliens from our neighboring planet escaping only to settle here. Sirius five would like to tighten immigration laws, but there is a larger galactic policy that has so far prevented that from happening. We have been petitioning to repeal this law for years now. Will we finally be listened to under your leadership?”

“No,” Zaphod said, winking at the camera.

Another disapproving murmur. He saw a man in the back sigh and refill his glass of wine. 

“Of course  _ you  _ wouldn’t,” Pheebos sighed.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Zaphod snapped, panicking as he was forced onto the defensive. 

“Well, as anyone who follows the news, as I am sure you fine people do, would know,” Pheebos smarmed, great tail swishing from side to side, “Mr. Beeblebrox, a few months ago, picked up a new assistant. Trillian Astra, was it?”

Zaphod’s eyes darted to Trillian, who was frozen mid-sip of her wine. 

“You see, popular opinion is that she was from Betelgeuse five,” Pheebos continued. “However, as I’m sure many of you know, most people of Betelgeuse five have two heads, as is the case with Mr. Beeblebrox here.”

“I don’t see how any of this is relevant, Pheebos,” Zaphod said, playing it cool as he sweat under his collar. 

“However, you may notice that Mrs. Astra has only one head,” she continued. “This is a rare trait, very rare indeed, as the one-headed Betelgeusian was nearly entirely wiped out after the planet was lost to a time anomaly. So rare, in fact, that upon consulting records, I only found results for one man, and he was long dead.” Pheebos turned to Zaphod and offered him a carnivorous smile. “Though there is a one-headed creature that bears a striking resemblance to the people of Betelgeuse seven.”

“Mrs. Pheebos --”

“The people of Earth!” she finished, triumphant. There was a gasp from the crowd. “The very people that Mr. Beeblebrox has, time and time again, used against me and my entire species. So, Mr. Beeblebrox, would you like to explain yourself?”

Zaphod stood, slack-jawed. The room around him burst into disapproving mumbles, bordering on outright fury. He felt his hold on the situation slip away completely. His stomach turned, his mind shorted, he felt sick -- 

“How DARE you?” rang Trillian’s voice from the crowd, righteous and powerful. “How  _ dare you,  _ Mrs. Pheebos?”

Zaphod whirled to face her. He wanted to tell her to stop, but couldn’t find the words. 

“Do you deny it?” Pheebos smarmed, looking very pleased with herself. 

“Of course I do!” she snapped. “How can you accuse Zaphod of anything? Zaphod, the man who took me in when I had nothing? Zaphod, the man who cared for me when I lost everything?”

Pheebos and Zaphod now looked equally confused. 

“You think that only one man wasn’t planetside when Betelgeause seven collapsed? Really, Ms. Pheebos, could you be more ignorant?”

“Trillian –” Zaphod started.

“My parents knew that the end was coming. They wrapped me in a blanket, at the tender age of… just a baby, and shipped me off just as the planet began to go under. I landed on Betelgeuse seven with nothing to my name except that blanket and a note my parents had tucked into the pod for whoever found me.” 

“Trillian –” Zaphod started again.

“I was pushed from home to home, never finding family. At… seventy, I ran away and lived like an… animal, in the streets, eating garbage, sleeping in boxes, until one day –”

Zaphod considered trying to stop her, but realized the effort was futile. He instead started planning their next move, which, as of right now, seemed to be flinging themselves into the sun. 

“When that man!” she nearly shouted, swinging to point at Zaphod, “found me, cold and hungry, and  _ saved my life!” _

A hush had descended on the audience. Pheebos stared at the little woman who stood before her, who stared her down, defiant. 

“What do you say to that, Ms. Pheebos?”

The lizardwoman opened her mouth, then shut it again. She stared out at the crowd, who all stared back at her. Neither of them knew what to do, so neither of them offered a solution to the other. 

“I apologize, and will further investigate my source on the matter,” she finally managed, unable to look the human in the eye. 

Zaphod blinked once (or twice, depending on how you looked at it), then turned to look at Trillian, who had huffily taken her seat and returned to her wine. She caught his eye and nodded, still keeping up the disgruntled act. He took a deep breath and turned to the microphone. 

“As I was saying, before Ms. Pheebos here launched into that very un-groovy ad hominem …”

In the corner of his eye, he could still see Trillian sipping her wine. He had two thoughts.

One, thank god for her quick thinking, 

And two, when they got home, he was going to treat her better then he’d treated any woman in his entire life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo yeah, im back from school! That said i work at a bakery and its christmas. so.   
these two chapters were mostly written anyways. Hopefully I'll get the ending to this sucker slammed out soon. I love these two dipshits. but dont hold ur breath, because i am a busy busy man and it's probably still going to be a while

**Author's Note:**

> Tbey said it couldnt be done. They said, eli, you gay bitch, you;ll never write f/m fic. and here i am. so far up these two's ass. id die for them, and i will. gnight every body more to come soon bc most of its written and im just figuring out the end (yes i dont know how many chapters there'll be yes i should have waited to post this and YES my meat is huge)


End file.
